French rapper Nick Conrad arrives at court for his trial over a video entitled 'Hang the Whites', in Paris on January 9, 2019. (PHILIPPE LOPEZ / AFP/Getty Images)

A French rapper of Cameroonian descent who goes by the name Nick Conrad is being fined nearly $6,000 for a since-deleted YouTube video that depicts the torture and hanging of a white man and calls for the killing of white babies.

The nine-minute video was published on YouTube in September and taken down days later by the video company for violating its terms of service, according to BBC News. The piece was decried by anti-racism groups as promoting violence.

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Paris authorities began investigating, and now have levied the fine and charged Conrad with incitement to murder, which could get him up to five years in prison and more than $50,000 in fines, BBC News said.

But Conrad, 35, and his attorneys argued in court that the video was meant to satirize racism by reversing roles in a play on the film “American History X,” in which white neo-Nazis perpetrate violent acts on a black man, BBC News reported. This put it in the realm of artistic license, his attorneys said.